Pariah
by Dropkicking Bullet Shells
Summary: Spoilers for S03E08. The Dixons and Woodbury were never meant to mix, not like this.
1. Die Like a Dixon

**A/N-** Hey, spoilers, man. ** Spoilers. For S03E08**, be careful now if you ain't caught up.

**Plot-** Spoilers for S03E08. The Dixons and Woodbury were never meant to mix, not like this.

**Disclaimer-** I do not own The Walking Dead.

**Warnings-** Violence, Harsh language, Merle, Torture, Drinking, ect.

**Pairings-** None

XxxX

"Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that's when you get shooting stars."  
_V. Nabokov_

XxxX

**Pariah-**

For a long while, Daryl believed that if his big brother was with him he would have helped look for Sophia. That little girl was everything that represented the things that he and Merle had been through. If they could have saved her then maybe a part of them could have been saved along with her, and maybe the dark, boiling pit inside him would simmer down. Only he didn't find her and the fire roared on.

Merle would've found her. He was always better at stuff like that, like finding those who didn't want to be found. They would've saved her if they worked together.

For a long while, Daryl wondered how long Sophia had wrestled restlessly through the forests. He tried to put himself in a young girl's shoes, feel the terror she had, feel the helpless, hopeless, aimless horror of being alone in such a cruel world. On nights that he would think about it he would wake up sweaty with nightmares.

He compared the gut wrenching feeling of seeing his father's headlights pulling into the driveway to what Sophia went through and it seemed so, awfully wrong. And yet it was so right. Did she know that she was going to die or feel pain or be lost to the lack of pity the world had to offer for someone so small?

For a long while, Daryl would lay awake, afraid to sleep and afraid to think. He would sit there and try to feel numb. He would sit there and he'd count how long he could hold his breath until his lungs caught fire. He would sit there and picture the warmth of a blanket. He would sit there and he would be alone.

XxxX

Daryl didn't like being in the middle of Woodbury surrounded by strangers. He'd spent his entire life running from crowds, and the last year coming to know them as a death sentence and now his worst fear was breathing down his neck. The people of Woodbury peered at him like he was scum, and he was used to that, but the way they kept getting closer, closer, closer made him panic. He knew he was backing closer to his big brother, but it was a natural response that he couldn't turn off.

These people viewed him as a vicious animal escaped from the zoo. Distrust, disgust, distaste bore down on him and it sickened Daryl that it didn't bother him as much as it should. But the way that the Governor coaxed them forward, to get a better look at the outlandish terrorists startled him. He really did feel like a beast trapped behind a deadly fence that just kept shrinking.

His heart thudded in his chest, forgetting how to function properly under the weight of so many strangers. He flinched when a rock whistled by his head fearing it was itchy fingers trying to touch him. He looked to Merle for help.

Merle's eyes offered nothing but an apology, a somber look that aged his brother's face by many years. Daryl had never seen the expression before, not on Merle, not on anyone. The look spoke of nothing but regret for the living, regret for the cursed, regret for past actions, regret for the dying.

Daryl figured this was where he started dying. Although, he could argue he started real young. Maybe the day his home burned down, maybe the day his father first laid a hand on him, maybe Merle's first time to juvy, or the day the disease hit national or maybe it was the day he was born.

Merle's reappearance surfaced too many memories in Daryl. He figured, by the clouded, pained look Merle was shooting at the gravel he was faced with the same vile nostalgia. Daryl felt cheated by life, the way he and Merle were treated they should have been able to rise and thrive on the land once it was over-run. Instead the world had betrayed them with more hate and more anger and more death.

Daryl should have expected it, the way things were moving so well with Rick and the others. He should have known that just as he was starting to become comfortable that Murphy's Law and Mother Nature and irony were spinning a web of chaos just underneath him.

Daryl's eyes flickered up when the Governor moved too close, sizing him up with his taunting chin and his slit closed eye. He would have been intimidating if it weren't for his patch, proving he was nothing more than human, proving he was tangible, proving he looked absolutely ridiculous dressed like a pirate.

"These terrorists want nothing more than to tear the foundation of everything we've worked for out from underneath us! Can we just sit here and let this happen?" The Governor, crowd pleaser he was, worked his audience, "What should we do with them!"

"Kill them!' The crowd chanted.

"Kill them!" They said.

"Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!" They ordered. The Governor was sickeningly pleased.

"You wanted your brother," the man spit down on Merle, "and now you have him." His claws sunk into Daryl's arms and he threw him forward for Merle to catch. Daryl looked up at his big brother, expecting to see another round of hate, hate, hate but Merle wasn't looking at him. His eyes were set on the Governor's, emitting a silent, vicious challenge.

Andrea's voice was unexpected, but it didn't throw Daryl off guard. He tensed a bit in his brother's arms, bound to tight to protect himself, and he turned his head just enough to watch her clamber down off the bleachers in a wave of gold and pale. She was stopped by a man whom she easily over powered but rested to a stop when she discovered the barrels of guns jabbed into her gut. She hissed.

"Let them go, Phillip!" Andrea's had eyes only for the man and his dead stare, "He's my friend!"

"It's not up to me anymore. The people have spoken."

Andrea's gasp of dread spoke lengths on what the Governor was capable of. Daryl narrowed his eyes, pulled into himself and waited, ready to strike, ready to land one last, meaningless blow before the curtains were drawn over the sorry flame of his life. He would stand for it, he would take anything they could dish out and he would do it with pride. He would die like a Dixon.

Merle looked at him and his eyes were hard, thinking something similar as his baby brother if Daryl could guess. They exchanged a silent unspoken conversation. They told each other if they were going down they were bringing the false, pitiful notion of a 'government' down with them.

And just as Daryl felt Merle tense, and he felt his own muscles clench with anticipation that smelly, old bag was thrown back over his head and he was being lugged off to fuck knows where. He yowled and struggled and kicked out blindly and was certain he actually hit someone at some point, but in the end the Governor did not kill him and his brother. He did much, much worse.

XxxX

**A/N-** Short, I know. The new episode inspired it, though and I just had to do something.

I would love to know what you think though, maybe? :]


	2. A Real Pity

**A/N-** Thank you so much to **writerchick0214** for taking a look at this while my brain was ... fried...

Many thanks to **silentnyx**, **letmefallasleep**, **writerchick0214**, **ihavenocluewhattoname**, **MarionArnold**, **MacDixon Love**, **LeanneDaseyLover**, **Guest**, **Rabbits Keeper**, **ProtoZivot**, **Kink Meme Anon**, **Feathered Filly**, **Riku-Aura777, eXsTorDiNaRiLY InViSiBlE**, **Prisoner of Winter** and **Scarecrow Lullaby**! You guys are too kind :]

XxxX

"It's hard to believe a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie in his place."  
_Henry Lois Menchen_

XxxX

**Pariah-**

Their mother used to smell of old cigarettes and ripe wine. Merle was always jealous growing up that the other kids' moms would smell of sweets and love and happiness. He hated that they could get away with hugs and kisses while he had to watch his own mother drink herself dumb every night.

Merle despised his mother. He hated everything about her from her smoking and her drinking to the way she would hum and sing and pretend everything was picture perfect. He hated her for quitting, for letting his father take advantage of her and of him. He hated her for allowing his father to get away with treating Daryl the way he did.

Merle had had it rough growing up. He had to put his mother to bed, had to remember to keep her on her side as she slept. He had had to dodge big, angry fists from a man too old to be a bully, his old man. He had to remember to make sure Daryl would actually eat. He had to watch his baby brother shrink when he should have been growing tough and strong, until he was nothing but skin and bone. Merle had to stay out of trouble so he could put dinner on the table every night, and put beer and cigarettes at his parent's reach. The happier they were, the less damaged Merle would find his baby brother.

But, Merle was a bad egg and he was taken from his duties on many occasions to do his time behind bars. They didn't ever give him much to do in his cell, he was stuck doing nothing but dealing with the sick, twisting knots of worry in his stomach. He was left in the silence and loneliness that gave him plenty of time to remind himself repeatedly that he had failed his baby brother, that every night he went to bed in a cell little Daryl went to bed hungry. He was left knowing that Daryl would surely die young and alone at this rate.

XxxX

It was almost ironic that Phillip brought the Dixon boys to the same dank tin can that Merle had tortured Glenn and his girl in merely hours before. It still smelled of rotten flesh even after the old, double dead biter had been removed and burned. The sick, red puddle of blood still lay at Phillip's boots.

They had brought in a new chair, and that made Merle laugh bitterly. This new one wasn't much different than the one that little Asian boy had broken in his last ditch effort to survive, and given the same opportunity and the same desperate lure Daryl could have escaped from it too, Merle had no doubts. Merle himself could have mimicked the boy now that he had the idea in his mind.

Merle was dragged in after his brother but David and Emilio, the two men flanking either side of him, didn't drop him to the floor like he expected them to. They held him there, facing his baby brother, as a subtle rage built up in him. He watched them tie Daryl to the last remaining furniture in the room, he watched Phillip loom behind Daryl and stare devilishly back at Merle, dark eyes flashing.

It was silent for a long while, as Merle took the time to judge his odds of getting out of the little mess he had spun himself into. If he ditched his brother now he could probably make it to the wall, perhaps even make it over and into the woods, even considering his lack of handy materials. It was a pity that leaving Daryl behind was out of the question.

A real pity indeed.

Merle could hear his younger sibling breathing from behind the bag on his face, maybe calculating his own slim chance of survival or maybe trying to choke down and process the chaos of everything that had been thrown at him today. It brought to question of what his baby brother had been up to since the quarry almost a year ago. It brought to question what, exactly, had brought Daryl to this point, to Woodbury.

"Are you happy now, Merle." Phillip barked, clearly not pleased, "You have your brother and I have a town full of people at the ends of their ropes."

Merle looked down at the chair, watching his brother shudder as the voice spoke just above him. Daryl clenched his fingers into the arms of his seat, and Merle could almost hear him grit his teeth, could have sworn he heard his snarl.

Merle didn't answer Phillip, feeling it would probably bring more bad than good to say something out of line now. Although he did have a wicked response on the tip of his tongue.

"You and your brother wont live through this." Daryl froze rigid in his chair, "How you die and when you die is completely up to you."

"Well then," Merle smirked, setting foreboding senses aside, "then may I make a couple'a suggestions? I was thinkin' somethin' with fireworks."

Phillip's eyes narrowed but remained unnervingly calm, "I'm going to talk to your brother first. I'm going to speak with you about your actions later."

"Now, now, Phillip," Merle said easily, "I'm sure you'll find all yer answers with me. I'll even give um' up free of charge!"

Phillip's lips twitched darkly at the mention of his name, his grip on Daryl's shoulder tightening until the hunter tried to lean himself away from the touch. Merle wished he hadn't opened his mouth for just a second.

"Take him to the other room," Phillip ordered the two holding Merle, "Make sure he's secure. If I have another incident like earlier, if any more of my prisoners escape or any more of my men die you will have to answer to me."

The men nodded strictly, clamping their grips on Merle's arms like a couple of thick wrenches. He let them steer him away. Fumbling and freaking now would only make him look small and weak in the face of Phillip.

Emilio and David brought him to the room Glenn's woman had stayed in. It sickened him to know that karma was an angry, fast-acting bitch nowadays. He had assumed he'd earned some positive points what with his changed ways, but it seemed not.

"Yew think I could get a cigarette while I wait?" Merle laughed throatily at the pair of henchmen, feeling his chest tighten with panic. He was exceptionably pleased that the years of juvy and card games and coming to face too many cold, hard facts had developed Merle's poker face to an almost unbreakable level. He grinned with his teeth and chuckled as he was ignored, and as Emilio pushed him to sit, and even as he heard Phillip's deep, commanding voice addressing his baby brother through the paper thin walls.

They used a pair of handcuffs to fasten Merle's good hand to an old pipe in the back, and at this point in his life, Merle was so, very tired of handcuffs.

XxxX

**A/N-** Thank you for reading, see ya'll next time :]


	3. Much of Anything

**A/N-** This is probably the only story I have going that I'm 100% winging, I have no plans set or any other doc open with thoughts and ideas... It's an interesting experiance.

To **ArmedWithMyComputer**, **Rabbits Keeper**, **LeanneDaseyLover**, **eXsTorDiNaRiLy InViSiBlE**, **Effigy**, **GhostWritter84**, **jess144**, **MarionArnold**, **rebecca taylor**, **musicandme37**, **The Dramatic Sneeze**, **jemlou**, **Feathered Filly**, **Prisoner of Winter**, **silentnyx**, and **letmefallasleep**! Thank you guys for your continued support :D

XxxX

"A villian's smile might be good looking, but his smile is never quite right."  
_Mason Cooley_

XxxX

**Pariah-**

Daryl had heard a joke once, that he had long ago forgotten. He remembered the punch line from time to time, almost randomly, and he would laugh, not at the joke itself, for that was nothing more than a thin web in his memory, but he would see the giggling faces of the other kids that had heard it, the kids from his class, faces all pink and chubby with glee and for some reason that would send Daryl over the edge, clutching his side and chuckling heartily.

It was like an inside joke no one would ever understand, or like watching Saturday morning cartoons and being the only one who found them humorous. The odd looks he would get wouldn't matter, the awkward feelings ignored, because for just a moment, like the kids back in class, the world was just fine and dandy.

Daryl didn't tell anybody that that one joke still stayed with him long after he had left that school behind, long after he had grown up and into the cruelty of the world. It was his little secret for as long as he could remember it.

Except for one night, after his father had stumbled his way home wreaking of hard liquor and cheap sex and had turned on his boy, trying to throttle out answers that the poor kid didn't have, and Daryl had remembered the punch line and the giddy faces and he hadn't really felt like laughing along.

XxxX

Daryl was forcibly seated in a chair in a room barricaded from the cold breeze outside. His arms were held down against the wood by meaty hands, and the rip of duct tape and the stick on his skin followed. He couldn't make out much through the material of the bag over his head, just moving shapes and blurring colors, but he could tell which one was his brother.

When the bag was pulled away Daryl flinched from the lights. He allowed his eyes to narrow into angry slits to protect against the sudden, sharp colors and to show these men that a few good kicks and low jabs couldn't keep a Dixon down.

Merle was gone, as if in a puff of smoke, only leaving behind the Governor's threats, thick as syrup in the air. Daryl's ears were ringing with the thought of his certain demise, the idea of leaving Rick and the group to hunt and feed themselves made his heart ache. Carl and little Judith would surely starve after the rations ran out if Rick couldn't get himself together.

Daryl truly hoped Rick would pick up the pieces, the group was counting on that, and if Rick was really as desperate to get Daryl home as he had sounded earlier, than perhaps that might prove to be a problem. Daryl had his doubts though, despite being able to catch good game, he wasn't much more than a problem to the group. They would certainly, eventually, figure things out, for they had grown strong enough in the past few months alone to fend for each other.

Daryl was nothing special, certainly not to a group as tough as the one he had grown to love protecting, but he hoped they could get their asses in gear and book it before the Governor caused more trouble.

Daryl couldn't see any familiar faces in the tiny room, he couldn't hear anything he recognized, and like a cornered beast he immediately tensed and drew into himself. The Governor, with his scrunched, unhappy face, stood over Daryl, peering down at him. The man reached up to gently run a hand through his own hair before sighing like a disappointed parent. Daryl was a bit taken aback, he blinked a bit to make sure he hadn't seen something incorrectly, but no matter how many times he shook his head the Governor remained slouched in the same hampered pose.

Daryl tried not to let the puzzlement show on his face and instead pulled his lips back like a snarling dog. He puffed out his chest, trying to look mean and nasty and big, and the Governor responded with the click of his tongue and the shake of his head.

"I've heard a lot about you from your brother, Daryl." The Governor either didn't notice or didn't care about Daryl's on-edge tension, he circled around the bound man as he talked, careful to stay out of his prisoner's sight most of the time just to keep himself from seeming predictable. "I've heard lots of good things."

The Governor spoke slowly, Daryl noted, not in the careful way that a parent would talk to an toddler, but in a way that forced Daryl to ponder over every statement like it was a lesson. That was the ever so familiar way that Daryl's father used to speak to him when his words weren't slurred by booze. This was the type of thing that sent shivers down Daryl's spine when sticks and stones and broken bones did nothing.

"Yew ain't gettin' nothin' outa me." Daryl spat and glared whenever he could see the man, "Yew can go right on and fuck yerself."

"Right to the problem at hand, I see." The man's accent was a familiar southern, it was thick but it was educated. "You're a lot like your brother, do you know that? You don't take any bullshit, not from anyone."

Daryl pulled at his limb, silently imploring them to obey and to move, but they tugged against the tape uselessly. The Governor stepped close, his face only inches away, his good eye speaking of nothing but punishment for those who deserved it.

"You have no idea what you and your little group of buddies have cost me." the Governor's tone took a deadly turn but remained a chilling level of calm. Daryl instinctually pushed back, shoulder blades pressed flush with the wood as he tried to get as far away from the smell of blood and hate as possible.

He tried to keep a strong facade, but Daryl had never been good with people up close in his face. He had long ago learned that it was always bad news. Even Rick, his breath pleaful, begging Daryl to ignore his big brother's presence just a few short hours ago had made his skin crawl and his hair stand on end.

"I'm not tellin' yew nothin'." Daryl repeated, the strength in his voice unwavering as he thought of the kids back at the prison and the women and Rick's broken heart.

"I don't want to know anything tonight," the Governor cooed darkly, "Tonight I want revenge for that which I've lost. Tomorrow you can tell me everything you know."

"Fuck yew." Daryl snarled and was cut off by a swift punch to the gut. He gagged on his lost breath, choking and sputtering his surprise. He didn't get a chance to catch his breath before the next hit landed.

Daryl's lips was split as the Governor's knuckles crunched across his chin once, twice, three times. He blinked the stars away and bit down on his cheek to withhold a gasp, regretting it immediately when his captor thrust his fist down against his temple, against his unprotected eyes, and his teeth chomped down on his own flesh. Blood flooded his mouth and he tried to spit it out, though his mouth wouldn't work right after such a sudden, unexpected attack and instead blood pooled between his lips.

He choked when he swallowed, bitterly remembering all the times he had been through this beating. The constant, no matter who's hand were battering him, was the iron taste and the nausea that followed.

Daryl braced himself as a crooked, fierce hand held him in place at his shoulder and the other wreaked havoc on his rib cage for what felt like forever. Daryl could hear his bones creak and crack in protest, but he couldn't do anything with his limbs folded to the chair, and his body refusing to acknowledge his orders. He sat there and took it without so much as a yelp of pain, without making more noise than the sound of air forced from his clenched teeth. He sat there without a choice in the matter.

Daryl had once believed that every person had their own share of pain and distress in their lifetime. Needless to say, after the mountains of shit he had had to put up with over the span of his miserable existence, he didn't believe in much of anything anymore.

XxxX

**A/N-** Happy not-end-of-the-world-actually Day! And Happy Holidays, too!

Thanks for reading, see ya next time!


End file.
